I’ve just finished the second Gone novel by Michael Grant, entitled Hunger. And I can now say that I do totally agree with the VOYA review quoted on the back “If Stephen King has written Lord of the Flies, it might have been a little like this”.
It’s a creepy series so far, and given that Michael Grant (who is married to K.A. Applegate – of Animorphs fame) has written the third book in the series called Lies and has publicly that the forth has a working title of Plague, it looks set to get a whole lot more creepy. Apparently it is going to be a six book series.
You can check out the official word on Michael Grant on the Harper Collins site. However, I preferred to read the blog entitled Stupid Blog name, where Michael Grant has been blogging about this series, and other things that interest him, along with a whole bunch of other YA authors. Back to the books …
The gist in the first book, Gone, is that one day everyone over the age of fourteen disappears, in many cases the adults literally disappear in front of their kids. They simply cease to exist. Left behind is a group of confused and lost kids, from babies through to fouteen year olds. Upset, sacred and perplexed, those left behind have to work out what they are supposed to do now.
Throw in some kids with supernatural power, throw in a stranger or two to the area, throw in a nuclear power plant, throw in an increasing lack of food, throw in babies and pre-schoolers. It’s a volatile and emotional situation, and it’s damned intriguing to read about what happens to this disparate group of kids over the coming weeks after the disappearance of normality.
The second book, Hunger : a Gone novel, delves into the reality of no food, no adults, a growing number of bullies, separation of the community into those who have powers and those who don’t, creepy things lurking in the night, animals morphing into new creatures, packs of coyotes roaming the land. The second book rocks in at 590 pages. There’s rumours of movie options, so I would say, grab a copy of the first book now to keep up with the series and be prepared to be more than a a little creeped out.
17 July 2009 at 3:07 pm
I tried to read Gone but gave up after a couple of chapters. I thought it was written more like a movie script than a book and I got really irritated by the way some of the characters were talking. Maybe if it’d been written by Stephen King I’d have been more interested.
17 July 2009 at 5:14 pm
I know what you mean – it does read in some places as though he was conscious of setting it up as a potential movie … who knows whether it will get picked up and optioned and prodiced. In some ways, it would be fantstic on the big screen with cool special effects.
If you pretended that it was Stephen King’s name on the front … would you give it another go?
18 July 2009 at 12:04 pm
I’ll definitely consider it when my pile of books that I still have to read shrinks.
20 October 2009 at 11:05 am
I loved both books and am waiting eagerly for the third to come out. I hate when books from a sequel end stupidly just to drag the story out, but this sequel doesn’t do that to me.